


Redemption

by FlynnItUp



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 09:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlynnItUp/pseuds/FlynnItUp
Summary: Arthur visits the graves of his deceased family.





	Redemption

Arthur Morgan stood quietly with his head bowed, his eyes staring blankly at the parched grass. He couldn’t bear to raise his gaze to the two small crosses that had been erected, years before, outside the house that had once been home to his family. It had fallen into disrepair years ago – he hadn’t visited the place in years yet hadn’t had the heart to sell it on. This was a place that had a spot in his heart, a place that was his and truly his. But it was a place that harboured terrible memories for him. He recalled the day when he had ridden on up the rough dirt track towards the little house, excited to spend the day with Eliza – a woman who by rights he should have married – and his son, Isaac. And then he had seen them – the double graves of his family who had been murdered by robbers. He’d ridden away that night and not returned for years, until he had realised that he needed some sort of closure. Now he visited when he could, sat on the ground before where the bodies of his family lay and spoke to them, talked to them of his adventures, read them extracts from his journal.

He sat now, removed his hat from his head and placed it on the dried and cracked ground. Hands rough from years of horse riding and gun slinging reached into his satchel and pulled out his journal, flicking the pages open before he glanced up, his eyes briefly taking in the worn etchings on Eliza and Isaac’s graves.

“’Liza. Isaac. This’ll prob’lly be the last time I come see you. I had to see a doctor not long back, fell from my horse in the middle of Saint Denis after coughing so hard I was spittin’ up blood…” He sighs as a slight breeze flicks the vellum pages of his journal, “I’m dyin’, ‘Liza. I’m dyin’ and I very much doubt’ I’ll be joinin’ you both in whatever afterlife there may or may not be. If there is a beyond, like what the bastards in the Church say then you best believe I’ll be goin’ straight to hell…”

That was the truth. If there were such a thing, Hell would be where he was going. He’d done so many bad things in his life, killed so many people and not all of them the type who deserved death. He’d robbed and pilfered, blown up trains, stolen horses, broken people out of jail. He’d even collected debts from those who had borrowed from the gang, threatened them when they couldn’t pay up even when they had young families to care for. What sort of man did that sort of thing? Was there any way he could get redemption? He doubted it.

“So you two’ll be happy up there in Heaven or wherever y’are. And I’ll be burnin’ next to Satan. Or maybe just rottin’ in a shallow grave somewhere with not even a headstone to mark me. Though I gotta say I expected to go out at the end of a rope, given as the Pinkerton’s have been on our tail for so long. By rights we should all be dead. But instead we still run. Dutch keeps makin’ out we’ll be able to start afresh from somewhere but we tried that before, in Guama. It didn’t work out at all…there’s no fresh start out there, not for me. The Doctor said I got Tuberculosis and the best thing for me is rest. But I can’t rest, ‘Liza. I can’t. I gotta keep on goin’ til the day I drop down dead.”

Expelling a sigh, he stood up and placed the leather bound journal back in his satchel. A hand moved up to his Stetson then, pulling it from his head. He moved forward, the dry grass crunching beneath the soles of his boots, and he hooked the weathered leather headpiece on the edge of Isaac’s grave marker. The kid would’ve liked that, had he been alive. He often had dreams of bringing his son up in the life, teaching him to ride a horse and shoot a gun. But it wasn’t to be.

“I’m gonna do my best to get some sort of redemption…just in case…just in case there’s a possibility of ever seein’ you two again…”

Nothing more needed to be said. Instead he turned and left the two grave markers behind him, silhouettes against the setting sun as it disappeared behind the hill top.


End file.
